Saying she grew up watching violence, Mayor Olivia Chow is urging city council to declare intimate-partner and gender-based violence an epidemic.

This comes the day after a reported dramatic increase in the number of applicants to the city’s subsidized housing wait-list feeling abuse.

The mayor’s proposed, largely symbolic declaration, calls on the provincial and federal governments to implement the nearly 90 recommendations from the 2022 Renfrew County inquest into the murders of three women in rural eastern Ontario.

Chow would also like city staff to look into how they could make ”meaningful investments to the programs and services” that prevent such violence and support those facing it.   

The issue resonates with the mayor who recalls a night almost 40-years ago when her mother called after being beaten by her father.

If approved by council, Toronto would join over 30 municipalities and regions in Ontario that have declared either type of violence an epidemic.